10.09.2008

Joyrides to Monk's Castle and Albino Village

"... First of all, the cars were all bigger back then. Plus a lot of them had things in them called seat belts, which some of us even wore on the occasions we remembered they were there.

This, of course, I would explain to my daughter as learning to drive in the dark ages when I was a teenager in the 1970s.

"Yes, dear, we did have cars when I was in high school. . . . No, dear, it was long ago, but there were no dinosaurs around when I learned to drive . . . except for the Sinclair dinosaur. No. Never mind. There were no real dinosaurs when I learned to drive.”

In the early 1970s, it was fun to drive. The speed limits were 60, 70 m.p.h. and higher on some roads. We could pile into the car and go to the drive-in restaurant, or the drive-in theater - where they showed a movie on a giant screen and you watched it from your car.

Then you could go to the food shack and pay an enormous amount of money for some lousy food - no, there were no video tapes then, or VCRs. If you wanted to see a movie without commercials, you had to go to a theater..."